Awesome wildlife footage taken with a hobbyist drone

When I went up to Alaska with a handful of photographers last summer, the talk repeatedly turned to using drones for photography. One of the photographers had one at home and loved the landscape shots he could take with it. As nature documentaries such as Winged Planet roll out, with ever more impressive ways of getting views from the sky -- even attaching cameras to birds themselves -- the notion of using drones for photography and film-making is less and less futuristic. The above footage of a family of coyotes was taken by Thomas Renck of Riverside, CA, whose hobby is using his tricopter to get aerial footage of awesome scenes like this. The video is featured on Mental Floss . Renck is just one of a growing handful of people who are sending their cameras to the skies. And while many may question issues of privacy -- and rightfully so -- it could also mean a growing appr...